May 15, 2024

Duckworth Reiterates Support for Illinois Tech Hubs in Meeting with iFAB

 

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) today met with Illinois Fermentation and Agriculture Biomanufacturing (iFAB) Tech Hub leadership to reiterate her support for the program, one of Illinois’s two designees by the U.S. Economic Development Administration as a Tech Hub. The iFAB consortium recently applied for EDA’s Tech Hub Phase II funding, which could bring in up to $70 million in federal support and unlock more than $600 million in investment in Illinois, supporting jobs and helping grow the biomanufacturing industry in Illinois. Duckworth was a champion of iFAB’s application and has continued to strongly support the consortium. Photos from today’s meeting are available on the Senator’s website.

“Illinois is already a hub of agriculture, manufacturing, transportation and technology, making our state ideally positioned for these Tech Hub designations and, with them, greater innovation, investment and job creation,” Duckworth said. “I was proud to help pass the CHIPS and Science Act last year, and I’m thrilled that with programs like iFAB we’re making it clear our state has the projects and innovation ready to compete for the law’s new investments and help bring our state, nation and world into the future.”

Duckworth, along with U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker championed iFAB and advocated fiercely for its selection, along with Illinois’s other designee, Chicago Quantum Exchange’s The Bloch. The Tech Hubs program was authorized by the CHIPS and Science Act and will directly invest in high-potential regions across the country to transform them into globally competitive innovation centers. A total of 31 Tech Hubs were selected nationwide from 198 applications from regional consortia that include industry, academia, state and local governments, economic development organizations and labor and workforce partners.

The iFAB Tech Hub, led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, seeks to scale precision fermentation to convert underutilized corn feedstocks into high-value, customized alternative proteins, food ingredients, materials, chemicals and more. By leveraging its regional assets in corn and soy feedstocks, food processing infrastructure, and research leadership, this Tech Hub will provide a domestic biomanufacturing testbed through the development and deployment of multi-use pilot and demonstration capacity and equipment for biomanufacturing innovators while also training a skilled workforce. If successful, funding would support the growing biomanufacturing entrepreneurial ecosystem, critical infrastructure projects for lab space and multi-use facilities and much-needed workforce development training programs.

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